I love stelvin closures based on personal experience and i’m definitely suspicious of Diam based on the horrible performance of neocork. Maybe that is not rational considering they are different, but, as a consumer, I don’t have to be rational. Having said that, I hope Diam performs like a dream because real corks leave a lot to be desired.
A couple of other points are probably should have made:
-
I do not rack my wines during elevage, I believe that that keeps them fresher longer.
-
I was not in do not subscribe to the concept that wine does not age under stelvin closures. It does, at a different rate. If you read the notes from vertical tastings from Plumpjack where are they opened and tasted screw cap and natural cork closed wines side-by-side, you’ll find that after about 10 years or so, the wines appear to be similar in profile. Before then, the screw cap wines do appear to age slower.
So to be clear, I’m not saying that my wines do not age under screw caps. I am saying that they remain fresher but still develop secondary aromatics and textures over time.
Look, if you open up a 7 year old Bordeaux, burgundy, or California cab, I think you would be quite disappointed to see it aging quickly, wouldn’t you?
Cheers.
Badly worded on my part. What I mean is that if you change a characteristic of the wine (e.g. how much oxygen it’s exposed to) you would not expect it to taste the same. Obviously if your contention is that DIAM and a perfect cork are identical, then it makes perfect sense the wines would be too.
Either way though, we can agree this Burgundy producer is talking crap.
This ignores several things:
(a) You can buy screwcaps that allow differing amounts of oxygen penetration, so if the winemaker wants some oxygen ingress, he/she can have it.
I thought we agreed a perfect cork allows no oxygen transmission? Why would a winemaker want to allow oxygen if that’s the case.
(b) Oxygen exposure is only one of many processes involved in aging wines, and one of the riskiest. Lots of other changes occur that don’t involve oxygen, and thus may not be affected by the choice of closure.
But if you change one factor you change the wine as a whole.
Depends on how it’s ageing. The speed of ageing should ideally be as fast as possible so I don’t have to cellar anything too long.
Of course, if it’s ageing differently, that’s another kettle of fish. But the part where the wine is sitting in my cellar for decades is not the fun part.
A perfect natural cork doesn’t, but a high proportion of them do allow air in. With the screw cap and Diams, the winemaker can decide if he wants a perfect seal or one that he/she figures allows the average penetration with cork. You seemed to be assuming the choice was between (a) screwcap with no penetration and (b) natural cork with the ideal amount.
True. But, again, you seemed to be saying that you don’t want screwcaps because they don’t allow oxygen in. My point was that your longest-lived wines under natural cork may have experienced no oxygen ingress, yet they still matured (albeit differently and perhaps more slowly than with an average imperfect cork). You seemed to assume that natural cork somehow allows the optimal amount of oxygen. The truth is that it allows somewhere from none and too much – you never know which until you pull the cork – and there are other factors affecting the aging at the same time.
For the record, I’m not as rabidly anti-cork as many people, but TCA and the variability with older wines is maddening. And the arguments in its defense often seem based on faulty assumptions.
Someone find a perfect natural cork please.
I submit that there is no such thing.
There is no such thing as a perfect cork. That is the point here.
If you look at the landmark AWRI study enclosures, it showed that the ‘best’ corks allowed in just a little bit of oxygen. The problem was that over a five-year period, there was well over 100× variability with this OTR.
Cheers.
It’s crazy to think screw caps don’t allow wines to age.
Look at TNs for lower level / commercial wines under SC on CT. After 5-10 years most notes say ‘at peak’ or ‘drink up soon’ or even ‘over the hill.’
It’s just not the case that these notes mostly say ‘tastes as it did when first bottled.’
The SC debate is painfully slow due due ignorance about the most basic of points.
And if you want your wines to age quicker, just turn up the heater in your cellar ![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
I don’t think Diam is anything like neocork. I mean Diam is cork. No?
Jason
You’d be surprised. There are plenty of ‘knowledgeable’ wine folks who believe that screw caps are impermeable - I deal with them nearly every day. And that includes ‘winemakers’.
There is so much ‘misinformation’ out there about screws caps - that’s why I tend to be so ‘vocal’ about them here, there and everywhere. No, not because I believe they are ‘the best’ - but people should at least have some ‘facts’ to consider . . .
Cheers.
Same company IIRC . . .
I edited my post as I made a comment already made by someone else further down the page than the one I was replying to.
My new post agrees with you.
I agree that an Alfert-style (my words) approach is necessary.
Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR. Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR. Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR.Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR.Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR.Sociando. Cantemerle. Lanessan. Senejac. Loire Baudry. Minimal new oak. Traditional wine making. VFM. QPR.
![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
I was hoping a true scientist would chime in.
At Uvaggio we started using diam around 2005 and so far, so good. Before we often had cork taint issues and the cork company told us to jump in the lake when we complained. I’ve heard the wood tannin thing about corks but I’ve never tasted an experiment that would show this.
I’ve heard reduction comments on screw caps but not on diam.
I buy Burgundies with diam and so far so good.
I buy wine from Oliver–the check is sitting on my desk now–and am always happy when the wines are closed with diam.
Once I was at a trade show where a friend was talking some guys from a cork company.
“So, are you guys going home tomorrow?”
‘Yeah, 9 am flight.’
‘So if there was a 3% chance the plane would crash would you take the boat?’
Diam corks have a low oxygen transfer, at the low end of natural corks…one reason they are popular with White Burg producers. Low oxygen transfer means the wine is more prone to reduction in the bottle.
On top of that, diam corks have very tight tolerances (i.e. high consistency between corks) of their oxygen transmission…another reason White Burg like them. But it also means bottles (of a particular wine) will be consistently reduced in the same way and amount. Nothing wrong with this cuz it’s what a good closure is supposed to do.
Along the same lines (i.e. identifying diam closed wine because of reduction consistency), how do you separate identifying a producer that uses Diam from identifying Diam for other reasons? I.e. how do you determine that it’s a result of some nefarious Diamness. And if there were some nefarious Diamness, why haven’t any of Diam’s competitors figured it out and exposed it? How do we know that Diam doesn’t cause Autism?
So what (if true…I don’t really know).
Ha! The anti-corkers!
Only in inoculated wines.
More probably cause is Rombauer Chardonnay.
It’s so hard to prove which is cause and which is effect. Perhaps the preference for Rombauer reflects autism.
NOT true.